Men’s Club Ice Hockey team celebrates their first national tournament berth postgame of their regional final victory over Cincinnati on Feb. 27. Credit: Courtesy of Savannah Deuer
The Ohio State men’s ice hockey club failed to advance to the knockout round in the American Collegiate Hockey Association National Championships in St. Louis March 14-16.
The Buckeyes were the No. 4 seed in their pool and played in the group stage against the University of Massachusetts, Dakota College and Trine University. Their first match came against UMass March 14, which came into the group as the top seed.
The game started rough for Ohio State as it fell behind after less than a minute. Eleven minutes later, they were down by five goals. Before the end of the period, the Buckeyes netted a goal to end the first period down 5-1.
The Minutemen scored three more goals in the final two periods to beat Ohio State 8-1. Alex Vineyard, a third-year in aerospace engineering and club president, and Jeffrey Hubbard, a third-year in electrical and computer engineering, both said Massachusetts was their toughest game of the week, mostly with it being the first game in a week and also coinciding with travel issues.
“The day before, we kind of had some issues traveling. We missed our assigned practice and had to get our practice switched,” Hubbard said. “I think coming into that game, we were already kind of facing a lot of adversity.”
The second game of the week for the Buckeyes was against Dakota College. Unlike their first match, the Buckeyes started quick and scored the first goal of the match less than two minutes into the game. Both teams scored another goal to end the first period 2-1 in favor of the Buckeyes.
Dakota College came back and scored two goals in the second period to take a 3-2 advantage into the final period. Just like the first period, three goals were scored in the third period as Dakota College scored two more goals while the Buckeyes scored one, giving the Lumberjacks the 5-3 victory.
Even though the Buckeyes couldn’t grab the win, Vineyard said he liked the way the team responded against Dakota College.
“It was a night-and-day difference between the day before against UMass,” Vineyard said. “We woke up a little bit, realized that this is still just a hockey game.”
In the final game of the group stage, the Buckeyes matched up with Trine. Just as in its first game, Ohio State fell behind in the first period 1-0. The score stayed that way until early in the second period when the Buckeyes tied it at 1-1.
Trine scored its second goal of the game later in the period to take a 2-1 lead into the third period. Both teams scored in the middle of the period before the Buckeyes recorded a late equalizer in the final three minutes to take the game into overtime. Eight minutes into overtime, Trine scored to snatch the 4-3 victory over the Buckeyes.
Even though they didn’t earn a win in the tournament, Hubbard said he enjoyed being part of the experience in St. Louis, especially playing the variety of opponents the Buckeyes matched up against.
“Playing different teams that we haven’t played before was a lot of fun,” Hubbard said. “Being at Nationals was just a really exciting experience.”
Vineyard said the playoff run has set the bar for future teams, and he expects how the postseason stretch ended will be motivation for next season.
“Bring us back to Nationals and to go further than we did. I think that’s the goal,” Vineyard said. “We’ve proved this year we can do it.”
